Good on you its always great to hear the stoke, no matter what brand.
Bit of a difference between an aero and a rebel eh?

Have fun...

LOVED my Rebel 14 until last Friday afternoon when it hit the water hard and canopy ripped in half from almost the centre of the trailing edge, right up along the centre strut to the leading edge. Now it's in the hospital and it doesn't look like I will have it back until at least the the weekend Good news is that it's really windy this week and my 9 (Rebel) will do just fine Was a little surprised the 14 did what it did, but then as I said before it hit the water VERY hard. Was only 7 months old, ouch

Difficult to say. Plan on comparing the construction of the trailing edge to a few other kites at our local spot when I get a chance. I've been very happy with North to date, have owned a few other North kites before the Rebel. No major problems. It was a decent slam. Kite hit the water powered right up and almost perfectly horizontal, leading edge down.

Despite what happened I think I would still buy another one. Have had an opportunity to fly quite a few different 07 kites and haven't found anything yet that I like better than my Rebel(s). It would be nice if someone sent up a 12m 07 Rhino for a few of us to demo!

quote:

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Originally posted by BoDiddly

Bugger Buschy, do you think that the same tear may have happened regardless of the kite? Looking at my Rebel, the construction seems pretty tough, so I just wonder if it's a weak point or if it really was a fair old slam into the water?

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Bodiddy, you bought the 14 meter rebel like I yeah? Do you find it totally flags out on the 5th line or there is still back line tension? I find my fifth line doesn’t take 100 percent tension as I would prefer it too. There are no adjustments I can make to fix it either. So just wandering if it’s just that size or something else. My 10 meter rebels bar which 5th line works fine on the 10 so tried it on the 14 to see if there was any diff and there wasn’t.. seems to me that the red line on the 5th located at the bar is too short and were the red fifth connects to the blue pigtail the blue pigtail needs to be shortened by a foot so that bar can ride up further.


Anyhow does your fifth work like it’s meant too and totally flags the kite? It’s important for me to have my fifth line work as its intended because I self launch with it and self land with it as I have solo sessions often.

Ta Bo for the feedback... looks like I got the wrong bar or something. Its not line twists or stopper ball at wrong place...both the 14 meter and 10 meter bars that came with the kites have the same result.

I would say the red section of the fifth line needs to be at least another 30 cm longer for further bar travel. But to lengthen it would mean to shorten another section of the fifth – I think…

The kites great for sure. My kite skills have really progressed since swapping from my other kites. 14 is a tad to slow for in the waves. That’s ok just an excuse to fill in the gap next year with a 12 meter rhino

Time to call my shop I guess to see what they can do... not good for the kite to be stressing the leading edge every time I try to flag out the kite on the fifth.

5th should totally flag the kite out, if it doesnt then something is wrong. With 5 line kies always check that the lines are not overly twisted up as this could possibly tie itself up on release. This will occur either out of the bag if the 5th is wound up on itself, or after lots of moves in one direction and then not straighting the lines out before each session.

If you are self landing or have time to relase safety (in otherwords not in emergency release) give the 5th a little tug and check the kite LE dips down and feels like the 5th is free, good check before controlled releases.

Dazza

Hey Cwamit,

Any news on your kite?

Next update, was down at Aspendale on Sunday (23 April) Ended up with a free hour in the last part of the day, I rekon for where I was it was blowing an average of 13 knots, gusting to say 16 at the best of times, (graphs show that Frankston got nothing more than 11 knots, and the Fawkner beacon says that it got to a max of 18knots and St.Kilda 15 Knots, so whatever you get out of that...

Bit of a bugger as I knew that the wind up at St.Kilda, but the time taken to drive there would have meant less time on the water!

This was the first time I have had to work the sh!t out of the kite to keep moving, bit of a challenge to keep up wind, but I was still impressed by the power I was able to squeeze out of the kite, even at such a low wind speed...

Enjoyed the starboard tacks as I was able to play in the swell, landed a nice olie to frontside transition - but couldn't ride it out as the wind dropped off again! and was able to also attempt a backroll! - now that was funny, barely got 1/4 of the way round before the kite fell out of the sky and I had to call it a day!

Meant to be some wind around tomorrow so here's hoping for a good day on the water!

P.s: Not sure if anyone else has had this happen to them, and I'd be interested to hear if you have... That night after being in the water at Aspendale, I went home, the Fiancé and I had the same stuff for dinner, and yet, at about 2:30AM I woke up to an axing headache, sweatting like a mutant and a gut that felt like it would be better out than in, had to speak to god on the white telephone for a while, and felt better after that, headache hung around for most of yesterday, Anyone else had something like that happen to them? the partner was fine through all this by the way, so I rekon food wasn't a part of it?!

Later!
Bring the Wind.